If I Had Led a Normal Life
by LadieLazarus
Summary: Kitty Pryde's morning run turns into an adventure bigger than anyone ever expected.
1. Chapter 1

Calm

"Piotr. You are the best ever." Kitty stretched out on the bed, enjoying her back massage. Her boyfriend grinned and continued his ministrations. "Logan's katas this morning really zapped my energy. I have aches in muscles that I didn't know I _had…_" Kitty groaned as Piotr found a particularly large knot in her right shoulder blade. She gritted her teeth and let him work it out, trying not to let him know it hurt. If he knew that it hurt, he'd probably stop, and that wouldn't do the knot any good. Piotr always stopped when it hurt. At all. It was actually kind of frustrating sometimes to still be treated like a porcelain doll. _Oh shut up, _her brain complained, _you love him. Now stop sabotaging yourself!_ She started to turn over so that Piotr would stop his efforts. She had more work to do, and if he kept going, she would go to sleep.

"Shto? Is something wrong, Katya?" Piotr cocked his head at her thoughtfully while his hands rested now on her stomach. She smiled at him.

"Nothing, babe. I gotta go run now before Logan finds out that I wimped out up here." She flashed him a winning smile and pulled her t-shirt on over her sports bra. "I'll be back in about 45 minutes, big guy. Finish the hat." She nodded towards the canvas that he had been working on when she came in after her session with Logan and he had abandoned it to help her with her aching muscles. He smiled at their inside joke and nodded.

"Da. I will finish the hat. You go running. And when you return, we can go and get some dinner?" He phrased it as a question as he usually did, allowing her to make the final decision.

"Sure. That's fine. I'll need to shower first though."

"That is fine. Perhaps I will need one as well…" Piotr approached her where she was putting her hair back in the mirror and pulled her back against his chest. She grinned and leaned into the embrace, halting her motions for a minute.

"That'd be great, Piotr. Sorry if I've been a little crazy for these last few days, but I've been dealing with the kids' finals and stuff like that, and I've had to meet with a lot of them outside of class." Kitty smiled up at him. He lowered his face and kissed her on the forehead. He liked to do that.

"It's fine, Katya. You are busy. I have things to do as well," his face took on a teasing smirk, "It is not as though I am pining away tragically until your return." Kitty grinned and pulled him down for a real kiss.

"Maybe you should be, big stuff, maybe you should be." She pulled away to finish putting her hair up. Once it was done, she waved and exited the room through the door, running right into Wolverine. "Oof! Sorry, Logan."

"'Sallright. You done runnin' already?" He raised a suspicious eyebrow. Kitty ducked her head, a little embarrassed to have been caught by her sensei.

"Nah. I took a little break," she admitted, "I was just going to run now."

"Mmhmm." Logan took a drag on his cigar and smirked at her. "Get gone or I'll have to give Petey a hard time for distracting ya." He tucked the cigar back between his teeth and cast his eyes towards the door to Piotr's room. Kitty snickered as she imagined Piotr's face bright red as it would certainly be at that kind of lecture. Piotr still wasn't completely comfortable with public acknowledgement or their... releationship.

"Nah, Logan-san." Kitty rolled her eyes at her mentor, "That's alright. I'll go for my run now!" Kitty headed away from Logan down the hall and towards the path she used for running. She grabbed her iPod off of the kitchen table as she passed by and had it thumbed to the mix that she worked out to before she was even on the path. She began her run, completely, blissfully even, unaware of the turn her life was about to take...

Anyone who gets this super theatre-geek reference will earn double points and I'll post the answer in a later chapter just in case ;)


	2. Not Again

Not Again…

Kitty was still deep in her work-out zone, not paying much attention to what was going on when, suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck became all prickly and stand-on-end-like ™. She dropped into a fighting crouch and surveyed the woods around her.

"Get a grip, Pryde." She muttered to herself, "You're getting paranoid in your old age."

"Or maybe intelligent." A figure stepped out of the bushes following the voice accented in something vaguely English. He was dressed all in black and was pointing a gun at her. Kitty hesitated for barely a second before she launched into an attack.

"Who are you!" Kitty aimed this question just as sharply as she aimed the elbow into his gut.

"Oomph! You don't remember me? I'm hurt!" The assailant ducked and launched into a complicated maneuver. Kitty easily avoided it, and kicked him in the shoulder. He went down hard, but was far from out of commission.

"I have a bad memory for ugly." Kitty scowled and swept her sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. She punched him hard in the stomach as he rose to his feet, and knocked him down to the ground again. She placed the toe of her sneaker on his jugular. "Who are you?"

"I'm not gonna tell _you_, Colonist." He sneered. Kitty dug the toe of his boot into his throat and he whined. "Go ahead and kill me. In fact, if you'll let me get into my pocket, I'll do it myself."

"Why? What's in your pocket?" Kitty gazed at his chest pocket, and he took the opportunity to pull something out of the pocket of his trousers. He placed it under his tongue and smiled.

"Cyanide. Potentia Penetralis Sacrificum." Kitty could do nothing but watch helplessly as his eyes rolled back into his head and his system began to shut down. She had seen this stuff at work before. It actually wasn't pure Cyanide. Cyanide capsules were deadly cocktails of a number of different neurotoxins. They usually took about 3 seconds to take effect and killed the victim painfully and unfortunately very quickly. She sighed and waited, nonetheless, until his body gave the tell-tale death groan before she removed her foot from his chest. She wasn't stupid, after all.

"Why," She muttered, "does my life always eventually resemble a reeeeally bad James Bond movie?" She began to go through his pockets. She found nothing of real consequence for a few minutes. A passport, which was more than likely fake, a key to what was probably a rental car, seven bullets, two more 'death pills,' and finally, the object that she had been both expecting and dreading. A card, the size of the average business card, with an extremely stylized, yet very familiar, black sun embossed onto the back. She cursed. "Here we go again, Pryde. Hope you still have your international phone card."


	3. With Friends Like These

With Friends Like These…

Kitty sighed and glanced at the piece of paper in her hand. It was 1 in the morning, the body of the agent had been processed by Logan and Emma's best laid plans, and now she had a call to make. On the paper was a number she hadn't really needed to have written down. It was kind of ridiculous, really. She had only asked Emma for the number, which the Institute had on file from Wisdom's time with X-Force, to make sure that it hadn't changed. …It hadn't.

Steeling herself for the ridiculously tense conversation to come, Kitty closed her eyes and dialed. Three… Four… On the fifth ring, a grizzled voice came across the connection.

"Bguhaway?"

"No. This is serious, Wisdom."

"Damn well better be…"

"Well, it's not a damn booty call." Kitty sighed, exasperated.

"Pity, that." Kitty could hear the smirk, but it must have disappeared as quickly as it originated, "What is it?" He was all business now. Kitty was surprised to feel herself more than a little disappointed, but she pushed it out of her mind. _Think, Pryde! You have bigger issues right now! _

"We got a little present yesterday afternoon."

"Oh? Pryde, I'm not in the mood for games right now, luv. Just tell me what the fuck is going on."

"I'm holding a business card in my pocket. It has a really interesting sun on it." Dead silence greeted her on the other end before an animated stream of cursing filled the line. Eventually, he managed to form it into a proper response.

"Right, then. What now?"

"Well, Wisdom, we send a plane for you, you get on it, and before you kvetch at me anymore, you remember that it's four hours earlier here than it is there." Kitty sat up straight as she prepared to call down to the hangar for the Blackbird to be prepped. Pete cut her off.

"No. Don't send your fucking plane. I'm calling in a favor. I'll get there."

"Fine. There's really nothing we can really do until you get here, so I'll just go back to bed. Call if you run into trouble and we'll send the Blackbird."

"Right. Be careful, Pryde. I know I don't have to tell you that, but…"

"I'll be fine, Pete. See you in about 7 hours." A commercial flight would take longer, but knowing Wisdom's connections, he could be there much sooner.

"Yeah. Wisdom out." The connection clicked out and Kitty got out of her chair. The walk back to her room was a long one. She was exhausted. She walked through the door to Piotr's room, not even bothering to open it. He was still asleep, as he'd been when she'd left. For obvious reasons, it struck her as easier to call Pete when Piotr was asleep and it appeared to have worked.

She slid into bed next to him and his arm fell around her waist. _I hope he hurries _was her last coherent thought as she drifted off to sleep.

She was awakened about 30 minutes later by the alarm system in the mansion going off at top volume. Piotr was already out of bed getting dressed by the time she made a mad dash for her room.

She was in uniform fairly quickly and jogged down the hall. The rooms where the students slept had already been locked down by the security system. She picked up the pace a little, and hurried along the hallway with her eyes open, scanning the scenery the way that Logan had taught her what felt like forever ago.

She eventually ended up in the foyer downstairs where she discovered Scott and Piotr dealing with at least a dozen more black-clad assailants. She jumped right into the fight and, almost immediately, brought the odds into the X-men's favor.

She had only been fighting for about 10 minutes when she noticed that Piotr was not metal. She turned to him and shouted in Russian.

"Piotr? Why aren't you two using your powers?"

"Inhibitor guns!" He yelled back, "They've temporarily shorted us out!"

The fight continued for an extended amount of time, when they finally found themselves down to the last 12 Black Air goons. Scott and Piotr were dealing with many of them when 5 advanced on Kitty. Piotr, casting a look around, noticed the considerable odds that his girlfriend was facing. He called over his shoulder in Russian to her.

"Katya? Are you alright?" He tossed the goon closest to him through the plate glass window directly in front of him.

"I'm fine, Piotr!" She called back, punching her current partner in the throat and moving to the next. "Help Scott!" The team leader did, in fact, look a little bit overwhelmed, taking on two at a time and looking around for aid. Piotr knocked another unconscious before doing just the opposite.

He stalked over to Kitty and pulled the one closest to him backward. The gigantic Russian kicked the goon's legs out from under him and Kitty looked up from where she was currently rendering yet another fighter inoperable and glared at the Russian. "Piotr! What the hell are you doing? Help Scott! NOW!"

"But Katya," Piotr was dumbfounded, "You are in trouble…"

"I am _fine_." She hissed, punching another who advanced behind her, "You _need _to help Scott. Now GO!" She kicked the same goon in the head. "If I needed help, I would ask for help! I said I was fine, so I'm fine!" Piotr stood dumbfounded, doing nothing.

Meanwhile, across the room, Scott was being cornered by three of the troopers, and desperately searching for a way out. They were advancing and looking to each other with anticipatory glances. The way that they figured, this was gonna be easy.

"Umm… I could really use some help here, guys…" Scott shouted warily to his teammates. Just as he was beginning to get extremely killed, one of the men let out a choking noise and fell to the ground. Logan stood smirking in Scott's direction.

"Needed help, Scooter?" The Canadian grinned and Scott knew he'd hear about this for at least the next six weeks. The two of them easily dispatched the remaining duo and cast their gaze towards the other side of the lobby.

Kitty had clearly, either alone or with Piotr's help, taken care of her assailants and was now apparently working on Piotr. Logan grinned, "Petey's in fer it over there."

"You think?" Scott was surveying the damage done, once again, the interior of the Mansion and not really paying attention to what was sounding like typical Kitty and Piotr to him.

"Oh yeah. She's pissed big time. She might even kill him." Logan lit a cigar and nudged the goon closest to him with a toe. Satisfied with the lack of movement, Logan walked over to the other side of the room and picked up his hat. Heading to the kitchen, he pretended not to be listening to the argument, but it was kind of hard not to overhear Kitty's indignant shouting.

"I can't _believe _you, Piotr! I told you I had it! If I say that I've got it, then I've got it! The last thing I need is someone looking after me!" Piotr, for his part, was looking completely and totally confused at the woman standing with her hands on her hips in front of him.

"Katya… you were in trouble. I could not allow anything to happen to you."

"It's not up to you to decide whether you can _allow _anything! I am a trained fighter, Piotr. I could take _you _out without even thinking really hard about it and I hardly think that I need your help dealing with three or four badly trained morons! Am I always going to be 15 to you!" Piotr's mouth opened to deliver his reply, but he never got the chance.

"Well well well…" Both of them turned at the voice from the door. "Looks like you lot've been startin' the fun without me." Pete stubbed out his cigarette with his foot. Piotr's face instantly turned to a scowl.

"Wisdom." The Russian turned to face one of his least favorite people in the world. Pete started walking across the room. Kitty still hadn't looked up.

"Hullo, Pryde." Pete lit another cigarette, "We have to talk." His eyes flicked to Piotr, "Without our own personal ambassador to the Soviet Union." Kitty's eyes shot up and she scrutinized Pete for visible ulterior motives. "Awww… fer chrissakes, luv. Would ya trust me for three seconds, here? It's for your own good, after all. You're just the only one what needs to know this." Kitty relaxed for a second until Pete decided to hold true to form, "Besides, if I wanted to get yer alone, I'd come up with somethin' a little more creative than that an' you'd be powerless to resist." He winked and Kitty instantly trained her eyes to her boyfriend, who was currently looking as though the words "It was an unavoidable battle casualty, Officer," were shooting through his mind. She had to diffuse this, and fast.

"Piotr," she came up behind Piotr and put a hand on his arm, "Why don't you go find out if Scott and Logan need any help cleaning some of this wreckage up and checking on the kids?" She was still a little bit angry with him, and clearly something was going on. She needed to find out what it was. Piotr almost growled and stomped off in search of Logan, Scott, and vodka. Kitty turned to her ex-boyfriend with a look that clearly stated, 'Did you have to?' Pete had seen that look on her plenty of times and raised his hands in defense.

"Sorry, luv. Couldn't resist. I'll make nice, like. Promise. Now, can we please talk? There is stuff you should know goin' on around here, and I don't think you're gonna like most of it."


	4. Surgeon General's Warning

Surgeon General's Warning

Kitty nodded and walked past him towards the door. "We can talk outside. I need a smoke." Pete's eyes widened, but he followed her without a word. Once they hit the outside steps of the Mansion, Kitty turned to him. "I left mine on the dresser. Can I bum one?" Pete hesitated out of shock for a moment, but then automatically fumbled in his jacket pocket for his battered pack of Marlboros. He tapped one out and handed it to Kitty before taking another one out for himself. He lit hers for her, still in a bit of shock as she inhaled deeply and placed her attention back on him. She waited a few minutes for him to say something and realized that he was staring at her with a look of intense amusement. No… wait… he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at… "What's so funny about my right hand, Wisdom?"

"When did you join the blackened lung brigade, Pryde?" Pete asked casually, dropping himself to the steps He was bloody jet-lagged. Kitty moved to the steps and sat below him where she could still look him in the face.

"When I was bartending in Chicago. Being around it all the time, y'know? And then finals hit and I just decided that maybe I could use an early grave." Kitty snorted and took another drag. "Now are we gonna talk about my bad habits all night or are you going to tell me what was so horribly important that you had to risk me being forced to sleep in my own bed tonight." Not that she had been particularly planning to let Piotr see her naked again any time soon after that ridiculous display of testosterone earlier, but Pete didn't need to know that.

"Of course, luv." Pete responded in a tone that made it perfectly clear that he knew exactly what she was thinking. "So, we may or may not have a small problem." Pete ashed his cigarette and casually surveyed the surrounding area for eavesdroppers. Seeing none, he leaned back on the step above him.

"Oh? And what would that be, Wisdom?" Kitty could hear the tension underlying his casual demeanor. He was worried. This was not good, but it was still a good idea to play it cool and not get visibly upset until Pete was.

"Black Air is after you." There it was. The light at the end of the bullshit tunnel. When Kitty caught Pete's eye again, there was definitely a little bit of fear there. Fear and… was that guilt?

"Me? Why?" Kitty asked, knowing the answer before the question was even out of her mouth.

"Well… apparently, they don't take it well when you blow up their bases." Pete shrugged sarcastically.

"That was like 4 years ago, Pete. Why now?" Kitty wasn't going to lie, she was a little scared now.

"They just got the resources together, the way that I see it. The word at The Crown is that Scratch also isn't as blackened and crispy as I would have liked."

"So… what now?" Clearly this was going somewhere, and Kitty had a feeling she wasn't going to like it.

"Well, you come with me to London, I keep an eye on you, and I get to pick that brilliant American brain of yours while we try to find out how to bring these bastards down for good this time." Pete stubbed out his cigarette and sat back waiting for the inevitable reaction. It didn't come from Kitty.

"Nyet." From behind Pete, Piotr stood with crossed arms, shaking his head vehemently. "She will not go with you,. Wisdom" Pete braced himself for an argument but it didn't look like he was going to get to make it.

"What? What do you think you're doing, Piotr Nikolaevich?" Kitty stood up and Pete had to admit, it would have looked funny for someone so small to be threatening someone so big if Kitty wasn't so goddamned scary. "I will go where I want! You don't own me, Piotr!" Piotr was, Pete had to admit, intelligent enough to back away intimidated as his girlfriend advanced on him. "You are lucky, between that stunt inside and now _this, _that I don't kick your metal-plated ass back into that house! I am _going_ and there's not a whole hell of a lot that you can do to stop me!" She turned to Pete, "When do we leave, Wisdom?"

"Well, luv, as soon as you pack your little bag." Kitty stormed back into the house and let Pete and Piotr standing on the porch, the former smirking while trying to hide it behind his cigarette and the latter trying not to look like he had just had the riot act read to him by his girlfriend. "So, Rasputin, lovely, uhhh… lovely weather we're having…" Piotr grunted and stomped back into the house. Pete grinned openly, watching him go, "Well," he thought out loud, "my work is done here."


	5. A PreFlight Fight

A Pre-Flight Fight

"Katya?" Piotr knocked on Kitty's locked bedroom door. He could hear her angrily rooting through dresser drawers inside. A few minutes later she opened the door violently. Piotr's brain went _Ulp! _She was not happy.

"C'mon in if you want." She spoke in a flat-line type of voice. Yep. Definitely not happy. "I was just getting my bag together."

"Katya. I wasn't saying that I could _stop _you from going. I just… I just would like you not to go." _There_, he thought, _that will help. _

"I got that impression." _Or not._

"Well, I still think is bad idea." His accent was thickening. He was upset. "I mean, Wisdom cannot be trusted and-"

"And neither can I?" Kitty's hands were on her hips again. This was not going as well as Piotr had anticipated.

"Of course I trust you, Katya! I just think that perhaps we should not tempt fate with this sort of-"

"Piotr! For God's sake! I am _not _going with Pete because I _like _him! I am going with Pete because it is for my own good. If you would pay attention for ten seconds or trust my judgment for the smallest of moments, maybe you'd see that there might be a reason for this!" Piotr was silent for a few moments.

"What do you mean, Katya?"

"People are out to get me, Piotr. People with the potential to do major damage to me and to the Institute. It is in my, and the students, best interest to go away from here until they are taken care of."

"Then I go with you! We go… we go visit Russia! We go anywhere, but you go with me! Not with the Englishman!"

"I am _not _property, Piotr! You cannot just assume that I will do whatever you say just because you say so! This is just like earlier!"

"Earlier? Katya, I still am not completely sure what I did!"

"Of course you're not!" Kitty began slamming around the room again, throwing things into her bag. "You never know! You're so bloody oblivious! Piotr, you couldn't accept that I had it under control! It just wasn't okay with you that I might possibly have control of a situation. Logan taught me, you know! I know what I'm doing!" Kitty stopped packing to light another cigarette. Usually, she refrained from doing this around Piotr because it upset him. Now, that was part of the reason for lighting up in the first place.

"Katya," Piotr was almost afraid to say anything, "Must you…" Her glare caused him to trail off in his usual anti-smoking tirade. He was in way too much trouble to object.

"Yeah. I must. You drive me to it with your complete lack of awareness." She sighed and took a drag. "Piotr, you have no idea how frustrating you can be sometimes. I mean, half the time I talk to you and you just stare at your fucking sketchpads, and you don't even look up. I try to tell you about something that's really important to me, and if you don't find it absolutely riveting, you can't be arsed to even pretend you care. And you're always, _always, _treating me like I need your protection." She sat down on the bed and looked at him, "Am I always going to be 15? I was serious downstairs, Piotr. I need to know if I am ever going to be an adult to you. I am 21 years old, Piotr, and I am tired of being the skinny, geeky girl who took care of your sister and followed you around like a puppy. I am my own person and I have parts of my life that have nothing to do with you." She looked around quickly to make sure that no one was listening, "Piotr, I took out a Black Air Base with Pete, and now they want revenge. These people are scary, Piotr. They have resources and agents that would kill me and everyone I love. I need to get away from them. This requires that I got with Pete and we hide while we try to work out how to take these people out of the way. This is not a personal attack on you, I'm not leaving you, and I'm definitely not leaving you to sleep my way across England with Double Oh Negative out there." She snorted. "Pete and I were over a long time ago, and I really don't know what else I can possibly say to make it clearer to you." She took his hand, "I need you to trust me here, I am not leaving you, and I will come back to you when this is all taken care of." Piotr sighed and looked away for a minute.

"Fine, Katya." He shook his head, "If you say so, then I have no choice but to trust you. You are right. You are an adult and I have to give you the choice and respect your decision." Kitty's expression lightened, and she put out her cigarette.

"Thank you, Piotr!" She hugged him and thought to herself _This is going to be fine. He's really coming around_.

Piotr was thinking, '_If he touches her I break him in half like little, English twig._'

Outside, in the hangar, Pete was thinking, '_Glad I brought the eyepatch…'_

Alright- for those of you who don't know, in the X-Force issue where Pete is talking to Alistaire Stuart, Alistaire makes a reference to Pete's eye-patch. Pete says that it gives him the mutant power of 'being incredibly sexy.' It was just a dorky reference.

Oh! And that theatre-geek reference in Chapter 1 was a reference to Sondheim's 'Sunday in the Park with George' in which the artist repeatedly blows off his girlfriend because he needs to 'finish the hat' on his painting. It is something of an in-joke in my theatre department with our resident artists.


	6. Game Plan

Game Plan

"We have to _stay _here?" Kitty glanced around the hotel room suspiciously. It was definitely not a four star location. She was looking forward to this less and less. The room was tiny. She went on a small exploration around the suite and came back into the living room with her hands on her hips.

"What?" Pete was flipping through the channels on the television. He didn't even need to look up to feel the slight tension wafting from Kitty's side of the room.

"There is only one bed, Wisdom." Pete rolled his eyes and still didn't take them away from the screen.

"Well, yeah. I'm takin' the couch, aren't I, gentleman that I am?" Pete had thought that a one-bedroom suite would attract less attention. He had already planned on sleeping on the couch. _But, _a voice in the back of his mind practically screeched, _Hope springs eternal, mate._

Kitty sighed and plopped down on the couch next to him, satisfied that he wasn't planning some kind of ridiculous seduction. "What are we getting for dinner?" She took the remote and searched desperately for something familiar. Pete shrugged and let her have it.

"Whatever Natasha brings us. We ain't leavin' this room until Scratch is in a box." He got up and crossed the room. There was a fully stocked wet bar on the wall, close to the window. Pete poured himself a scotch. "You want, luv?"

"Is there beer?" Kitty stretched her neck attempting to see what was in the mini fridge as Pete inspected the contents.

"Yeah. Newcastle Brown okay?" Pete held it up for inspection. Upon Kitty's confirming nod, he brought it back over to the couch and settled down in time for BBC news. They were silent for a few minutes until Kitty spoke again.

"Natasha? Natasha is involved?" She took a swig of her beer. Pete nodded and tossed back half of his scotch in one sip.

"Yeah. She knows. She took a liking to you last time and wanted to help." Pete shrugged and lit a cigarette. Kitty hesitated for a second and then got up and went to her purse on the small table in the kitchenette. She fished her own cigarettes out of the pocket and returned to her spot. Pete had changed the channel to a MASH rerun marathon and they both sat, drank, smoked and watched together in silence for a while, aside from show-related commentary. Halfway through the third episode, Kitty's stomach growled. Pete smirked and she blushed faintly.

"Sorry. I guess I'm just a little hungry. What time is Natasha getting here?" Kitty turned to look at the door. Pete followed her gaze and shrugged.

"Whenever she gets here. She's Natasha bloody Romanoff. She does whatever the hell she wants, doesn't she?" He lit another cigarette and prepared himself another drink. He nodded at her and, at her polite refusal, he brought her a water bottle instead. They continued watching TV and eventually, Kitty felt herself dropping off to sleep.

When she woke up, she could hear Pete talking. The person he was talking to answered in a female, Russian-accented voice. Natasha was there. Kitty's brain gradually realized that there was food to be had, and she roused herself and walked to the kitchenette. The Black Widow sat at the table, her long legs crossed gracefully, conversing with Pete. Styrofoam containers holding what appeared to be Thai food lay scattered on the table. Kitty's stomach growled appreciatively.

Natasha noticed Kitty first. She smiled at the young American over the rim of her coffee cup.

"Hello, Katrena. How are you?" She pushed out the chair across from her with her foot and gestured to it, in a friendly manner. "Sit. Eat. It's Pad Thai." Kitty got herself a beer from the fridge before sitting down at the table. Pete smiled companionably at her from behind his cigarette. The evidence of a ravenous Pete-meal lay in the general area in front of him.

"I'm surprised there's any food left the way that Wisdom eats." Kitty snorted as she pulled the container closest to her over to her plate. She shoveled a few spoonfuls of the spicy noodles onto her plate and reached for one of the forks lying in the middle of the table. "I'm fine, Tasha. How are you?" The beautiful Russian woman shrugged gracefully.

"I am fine as well, rooskaya. It is nice to see you again." Kitty nodded, her mouth full of Pad Thai.

"It's good to see you, too." Kitty spoke once she could speak. "It's been too long."

"Indeed. I was just telling Wisdom here that it had been far too long since we'd seen you. He was just agreeing with me, _weren't _you, Wisdom?" Pete choked on his coffee, and kicked Natasha under the table.

"Subtle, Wisdom." Kitty smirked at him. She finished off her plate of noodles and pushed it back toward the center of a table. She lit a cigarette, and Pete shook his head.

"I'm still not used to that." Kitty shrugged.

"Me neither. Get used to it, though. I really don't think it's likely that I'll quit anytime soon." She ashed it in the ashtray on the table and turned back to Natasha "What's it look like, Tash? How long are we going to be here?"

"Well, Katrena, at least until we can ascertain the exact location of your friends at Black Air." Natasha, ignoring Pete, turned to face Kitty and address her question. Kitty's eyes grew wide with shock.

"That long?" She put out her cigarette and stretched. Pete wolf-whistled and she shot him a dirty look. "That seems like a long time to be cooped up in this little room." Kitty had never done well with being cooped up inside against her will. It was one thing when she was working on something and _wanted _to be inside, but at least in New York she could come and go as she pleased. This was almost house arrest.

"Don't even think about it, grasshopper." Pete spoke up from his side of the table. Kitty jumped a little, it'd been so long since he'd said anything. When she wasn't prepared to hear his voice, it still made those damn insubordinate hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But he had no affect on her. Nope, not at all.

"Think about what?" Kitty piled innocence into her voice.

"You're stayin' here. At least until we can find those Black Air wankers. We need to stay where we can keep an eye on each other so that we know what's going on. And if you even think about runnin', I'm not afraid to use this." Pete held up a small gun. Kitty raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"You'd shoot me, Pete?"

"To save your life? You bet I would. I can shoot to wound."

"Awww… do they teach you that in James Bond School?" Kitty lit another cigarette and leaned back in her chair.

"Yes," Pete answered snidely, "They do. But this isn't a regular gun. It's an inhibitor gun. It'd knock your powers for a loop. An' the best part is, you can't feel it. I could shoot you right now and you wouldn't know it. I wouldn't though. That's bad form." Pete crossed the room and got another drink ready. As he came back to the table, Natasha stood and picked her coat up off of the back of the chair.

"Time for me to go, little children. I will see you in the morning, da?"

"Da, Tasha. Go ahead. Thanks for dinner."

"No problem. I will be back in the morning with breakfast." The Black Widow left the room gracefully casting a glance over her shoulder at Pete as she exited.

Pete leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the table.

"Well, Pryde, you ready for bed?"

"Yes, I am, Wisdom." Kitty stood up and stretched languorously before turning to Pete with a Cheshire cat grin, "Care to join me?"


	7. Turn of a Phase

Well-Honed Instinct

"Wossat now?" Pete almost fell out of his chair in his haste to sit up properly. "What did you say, Pryde?" His jaw dropped as Kitty glided towards him with a delicate sway to her hips that he definitely remembered.

"You heard me." Kitty reseated herself closer to Pete and lightly ran a hand up his bare forearm to the place where his rolled shirt sleeve started. He shivered and stared at her with wide disbelieving eyes. "I said, 'Do you want to join me?'" She moved away from him, then, and headed towards the single bedroom. Pete, jaw still slack, and brain struggling to catch up to his rapidly shifting priorities, stood shakily and followed her. They made it as far as the wall along the corridor before he backed her up against it and kissed her. She didn't protest, but something didn't feel right. _This is too bloody easy._

"What's goin' on, Pryde?" Pete stopped kissing her and pulled back enough to look her in the eyes. _God, she has amazing eyes… _"Why the sudden change? I thought you were deeply in love with big, dumb and Russian." His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Kitty smiled coquettishly at him and pulled him close again to kiss him. He felt her hands on his tie and assumed she was taking care of that particular article. However, suddenly, she was no longer in his arms, and he couldn't move very far in either direction. His blue eyes opened and he discovered that both ends of his signature black tie were neatly and carefully phased into the wall!

He panicked momentarily and then shrugged. _No problem. One hot-knife through this material and I'm out of this tricky wall and I can deal with Pryde. _

However, when he put his hand up to burn a hole through the ratty fabric, nothing happened. Presently, Kitty stepped back into his line of vision on his right side. She was holding something. _I am so stupid! It's the bloody inhibitor gun! I'm trapped here! Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

"Now, Pete," Kitty placed the gun on the coffee table and spoke with what seemed like genuine sincerity. "Don't get too upset. It's nothing personal. It's just that I've been in this room way too long and I need to get out for some air, and maybe to do a little shopping. I'll be back, and I'll be fine. But, I knew you'd never let me leave. So, I had to do what I had to do. You always told me that it was the only way to get anything done."

"Pryde." Pete was wildly scanning the room, looking for anything that may aid his escape. "You need to stay here. There is a mad man looking for you who would make you wish he had murdered you about ten minutes after he found you. It is far too dangerous for you to be out and about, luv. You really need to stay here." He was repeating himself, but he was desperate. This woman could not be running around London while Scratch was looking for her.

"Pete, I can take care of myself. Don't worry about it. I'll be back before you know it. You just stay put!" She winked at him and disappeared through the suite room door. Pete sighed and the mental barrage began.

_Wisdom, you moron! I can't believe you ever believed that someone like her would ever want anything to do with you again! Not when she's got that bloody steel poster boy for Communism at home. You are a stupidl, self-centered man, Wisdom. She's never gonna let you close to her again. You already blew it, and now she could get caught by Scratch and it is going to be terrible and it's going to be completely your fault. You're an idiot, idiot, idiot_! He scowled and leaned against the wall to wait until the inhibitor wore off and he could go to find Pryde.


	8. NotSoEasy Tiger

**8. Not-so-Easy Tiger**  
**  
**He never really got a chance to see how long the inhibitor lasted. Ten minutes after she left, Kitty was escorted back into the room by a very angry Natasha Romanoff. Pete was then freed from his restraint by a laughing and scolding Natasha Romanoff, and they were sitting around the table drinking, Kitty looking reproached and pissed off, Pete looking sullen at being tricked so easily, and Natasha looking amused. She was filling them in on a new development.

"So we know where they are?" Kitty asked incredulously from behind her fifth cigarette in as many minutes. She tended to smoke more when she was agitated. And right now, she was agitated.

"Well then, I guess that makes your little jaunt into the wilderness completely stupid and a bit pointless, doesn't it?" Pete harrumphed from his corner of misery, his fraction of a cigarette indicating that Kitty was not the only one irked by current situation. Natasha turned a sharp eye in Pete's general direction.

"Be quiet, little man. You're in just as much trouble. But, da, her little vacation was a little impractical. The important thing is now we know where they are and we can smoke them out. No pun intended..." She gestured to the bluish gray cloud forming in the hotel room and Kitty put out her cigarette looking a bit embarrassed. Pete, on the other hand, simply lit another with the remains of the first and leaned back in his chair.

"So what now, Tash? We just go in and Rambo-style the place? I'd assume the bloody 'yes'-men could come up with a better plan than that." Natasha looked at him as if he'd just suggested that her brain proportion was comparable to some sort of dinosaur.

"Of _course _I have a better plan, Wisdom. You forget who taught you most of what you know."

"Never, Tash. Never. So what's the plan?"

"Well, they are using, as their basic base of operations, a small building in the heart of a small village called Falmer. It's in the South, near Brighton."

"Where's Brighton?" Kitty asked Pete but he acted as if he didn't hear her. Natasha answered her question instead.

"It's on the coast. You've never heard of Brighton Beach?" Natasha pulled a disk from her pocket. "You know what to do with this, rooskaya, da?"

"Oh yeah." Kitty tried to put Pete not speaking to her out of her mind and went to the other part of the suite to retrieve her laptop. She had expected him to be frustrated with her for catching him off guard, but she hadn't expected him to be... hurt. Yeah. That was it. He was hurt. This was odd...She shook the thought off and returned to the main room with the program loaded. It was a set of building schematics. "I've heard of Brighton Beach, Tash, but I didn't know they were the same place."

" 's a fun town." Pete finally mumbled sarcastically from his sullen corner-o'-sulk ™. "If yer 22 an' an idiot." Kitty caught the subtle jab at her, and tried to act like she hadn't. He leaned forward to look at the diagram that Kitty's computer was now displaying. He launched into 'Pete-mode' almost instantly. Kitty noticed all traces of sulk now gone from his thin face. "Right. Now, this doesn't look too different from their usual set-up. We can probably get in the back way if ninja-Pryde can do us a small favor with the guards." At Kitty's nod, he continued, "This is where everything important is going to be." He Jabbed a section of the screen with a long, pale finger. "Namely: Scratch. Possibly even Scicluna and the lap-dog, yeah? But, that's if we're lucky. Therefore, we have to plan on taking them out individually and real quiet-like, all right? Now, we can't just blow the place up again. I mean, that worked great last time, but no one that mattered ended up blown to smithereens. This time, we gotta make sure that what needs doing gets done." Pete grinned and Kitty found it infectious rather than frightening. "And _then _we blow the base up. After all, a team is nothing without an M. O., yeah?" Kitty nodded again, knowing that Natasha would already infer a lot of this due to her years as an operative and that most of this was directed at her. And yet, somehow, Pete managed to make it non-condescending. He always did. She had always loved that about him. _Whoa, _she chastised herself, _Where did that thought come from, Pryde? Stay focused. You have a boy at home to deal with. Besides, this one has a tendency to walk, remember? Focus!_ She turned her attention back to the conversation just in time to realize that she'd missed a question.

"What, Pete?" Pete snorted and shook his head.

"Where you at, Pryde? I asked: do you think you can handle 30 or so Black Air goons should this thing go awry?"

"Oh hells yes." Kitty nodded, enthusiastic at the idea of a good fight. God, it had been too long. "I can do that. When do we leave?" Pete had to hold off on the automatic 'That's my girl' that wanted to leave his mouth. Instead he offered her a smile and a les proprietary statement.

"As soon as you're ready, luv."


End file.
